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Latin American lawyers state that the region must integrate its stock markets to reduce capital cost

The renowned publication Latin Lawyer held its 4th Annual Corporate Finance conference on June 8th, in New York, where distinguished lawyers from Latin American firms gathered to debate about the integration as a way of boosting investment in the region.

The panelists warned how the lack of a common capital market and the prevalence of often contradictory legal frameworks and tax regimes have limited market growth in the region. Also, they voiced the obstacles that diminish the efficacy of the integration efforts done so far, like the Latin American Integrated Market (MILA, for its Spanish acronym).

Juan Luis Avendaño – partner of Miranda & Amado – said that “for the MILA initiative to be successful you need to have two things: the first is good technology and the second is deregulation”, and immediately clarified that “by that I don’t mean getting rid of all laws, but the basic framework needn’t be different in different jurisdictions. The stock markets of our countries require a basic legal framework that can be common.”

In spite of the uncertainty in Latin America, panelists mentioned that clients, especially from the US, continued to turn to the region in search of higher returns.